Bestiary · Chinese · Fox wife
Miss Ren
Also known as: Ren
The fox heroine of Shen Jiji's Story of Miss Ren (781): faithful to a poor man, defiant of a rich one, killed by a hunting dog on the road west.
Miss Ren is the heroine of the Story of Miss Ren by Shen Jiji, one of the most celebrated tales of the Tang dynasty. She meets the poor young man Zheng the Sixth in the streets of Chang'an, lives with him in a rented house, and resists the advances of his rich cousin Wei Yin, shaming him into friendship. She uses her knowledge of the city to bring both men profit and pleasure. Warned by a shaman not to travel west, she goes anyway at Zheng's insistence, and is caught and killed by a hunting dog at Mawei. Her clothes are left on the saddle "like a cicada's cast skin".